Chapter 4 Figure 20 | Total protection rates | 2010 – 2019 70 60 (in %) 50 40 30 20 10 0 '10 '11 '12 '13 '14 Refugee recognition rate Responsibility for refugee status determination Only States can ensure comprehensive refugee protection and robust and long-lasting solutions for refugees. Therefore, supporting the assumption of State responsibility for RSD remained a top priority for UNHCR during the last decade. Despite some successes, many States have yet to establish national RSD systems or have systems that are not fully accessible. In such situations, UNHCR may conduct RSD under its mandate, either in the absence of a national system or, more rarely, in parallel with one. In some countries, UNHCR conducts RSD jointly with the government. In the last decade, the number of States and territories implementing national asylum procedures rose from 108 in 2010 to 116 in 2019. Some of the States that hosted the largest number of refugees implemented State asylum procedures during this period, including Kenya and, more recently, Turkey. This welcome assumption of responsibility by States is also evident in the proportion of the world’s individual applications for refugee status received by UNHCR. In 2010, UNHCR received 11 per cent of the world’s individual applications for refugee status and in 2013, 19 per cent. By 2019, the percentage fell to five per cent. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19 Total protection rate Although these trends are encouraging, the number of States in which UNHCR conducted RSD continued to remain stable (with some yearly variation). In 2019, UNHCR was registering new asylum-seekers in the same number of countries, 53, as it had in 2010. This could be explained in part by RSD applications made in small (often island) countries that rarely received asylum applications. But UNHCR also continued to conduct RSD in countries with national asylum systems characterized by persistent protection gaps. There is reason to be optimistic that in the coming years more States will assume responsibility for RSD and/or improve their asylum systems as the global community works to implement the GCR. At the first Global Refugee Forum, over 55 States made pledges either to improve their own asylum systems or to support other national systems, including in some instances through the ACSG which was officially launched at the Forum. A large number of civil society organizations and other actors pledged to support this process, including through advocacy for using the ACSG mechanism. Increasing efficiency and fairness in RSD procedures As the number of asylum applications made in the last decade continued to rise – due to new and ongoing displacement situations in Syria, 43